Minnesota Staats-Zeitung

Visiting Minnesota in 1858 to promote his quarterly, Die Fackel (the Torch), the freethinker Samuel Gottlieb Ludvigh impressed Republicans in St. Paul seeking an editor for their German-language organ, Die Minnesota Deutsche Zeitung (the Minnesota German Newspaper). Accepting the position with the promise of substantial financial backing, Ludvigh changed the name of the paper to the Minnesota Staats-Zeitung (Minnesota State-Gazette) to mirror nationally renowned German-language newspapers of the same name in New York and Illinois. The first issue of the Minnesota Staats-Zeitung was published on July 24, 1858. Typically appearing on Saturdays, the four-page, seven-column weekly covered local, national, and international news of interest to German immigrants. After unsuccessful attempts to secure the promised financial support, Ludvigh was forced to sell the paper. On February 25, 1860, Charles Reuther and Christian Exel accepted publishing duties and hired Albert Wolff as editor. A "Forty-Eighter" who had been exiled from Germany for his support of the 1848 revolutions throughout Europe, Wolff had extensive newspaper experience, which included work with Die Minnesota Deutsche Zeitung. While Ludvigh had focused the Minnesota Staats-Zeitung on support for the ideas of secularism and equality among men, Wolff and his successors were engaged more broadly in liberal causes and typically identified with the Republican Party, especially after 1860. Notable attributes of Wolff’s tenure at the Minnesota Staats-Zeitung include the enthusiastic promotion of immigration to Minnesota and his original poems that appeared in almost every issue. Some scholars suggest that Wolff may have been the first German-American poet, although not necessarily a notable one. In March of 1864, Charles Reuther sold his interests to Christian Exel, who sold the paper a few months later to future Minnesota state representative Andrew Robert Kiefer. In September of 1866, after a three-year absence, Wolff returned to the Minnesota Staats-Zeitung with his business partner Theodor Sander. They expanded the newspaper’s format to eight pages and six columns. On August 27, 1867, Wolff and Sander launched, in addition, a four-page, six-column tri-weekly edition under the same name, emphasizing national news coverage in an effort to expand their readership across the state. When Wolff became State Commissioner for Immigration from Germany in March 1869, Sander continued as the sole publisher.